EA's Wii U Games Will Require An Origin Account For Multiplayer

So you want to play all those nifty new Wii U games you got with your friends online? Well, no problem, except when you do go to play online with any EA game you'll need to tie your Nintendo Network ID to Origin. All heil the Imperialist Corporate Nation of Electronic Arts!

Moving one step closer to world domination through video game publishing, Electronic Arts wants to have Origin accounts tied to as many online networking services as possible, including Nintendo's upcoming Nintendo Network. According to Gamespot, an update to the privacy policy of EA's Origin confirms that NN ID's are required to be linked to EA's Origin service in order to play EA games online.

EA had started consolidating ID services into Origin accounts late last year. This means that if you play games on their Play4Free service you already have an Origin account. If you play on their EA Sports network, you already have an Origin account. If you log into their leaderboard service for any of their retail games, you already have an Origin account. If you so much as look at the EA logo, they've already impregnated you with an Origin account.

What's more is that EA has been moving past services into Origin's database, meaning that if you've used previous iterations of Origin such as the EA Store, the EA Downloader or EA's Link, you already have an Origin account. Extending the service to consoles is no big surprise. Chances are anyone playing an EA game online via the Wii U already has an account and using a common login and password will probably, unsurprisingly, pull up your account information if you try to log into Origin at this very moment.

Having Wii U owners attach their Nintendo Network ID to Origin is a great way for EA to pad numbers for the service and EA is already on the hype train for big upcoming launch titles such as FIFA 13, which is expected to be another top seller despite already moving more than 5 million SKUs for the Xbox 360 and PS3 when it launched in September.

The only thing we don't know is if there will be any stealth-installations of Origin on the Wii U or if it will collect and monitor your Wii U usage the way it does while you use the service on PC.